Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata said on Friday that the Japanese game maker will not cut the prices of its gaming consoles, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS.

Since its launch in November 2006, Nintendo Wii has sold close to 24 million units worldwide and the price was left unchanged. Wii is selling for $250 in US and 25,000 yen in Japan.

In the same period, Sony has cut the price of its PlayStation 3 by $200 in order to boost the sales.  Also, Microsoft has slashed the price of  Xbox 360 with $20 to $50 across various models.

Iwata said for the Associated Press that the price cuts “could leave gamers who bought early feeling ripped off”. "I don't think that model is correct," he said. Nintendo DS was launched in late 2004 and a revamped version, lighter and slimmer, was introduced two years later, under the name Nintendo DS Lite. Nintendo DS sells for $129.99 in the U.S. and 16,800 yen in Japan.

Iwata’s statement came after the Japanese game maker announced its earnings for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2008.

According to Nintendo, sales jumped 73 percent to more than 1.67 trillion yen ($16.07 billion) while operating profits soared 115.6 percent to more than 487 billion yen ($4.69 billion). Group net profit rose 47 percent to 257.34 billion yen ($2.5 billion).

Nintendo has shipped 18.61 million Wii consoles to its distributors and retail customers across the globe and 30.31 million Nintendo DS units.  

For the next fiscal year, Nintendo hopes to ship 25 million Wiis and 28 million Nintendo DS units.

According to the latest figures released by The NPD Group, in March Wii sold 721,000 units in the United States, while Nintendo DS ranked second with 698,000 units sold.

For the next month, Nintendo is preparing the US launch of its WiiWare, a game-creation service that will allow developers, large and small, to create new downloadable video game content for sale by Nintendo through the Wii Shop Channel.

Players will be able to purchase and download WiiWare games directly from the Wii Shop Channel in exchange for Wii Points. Wii Ware was announced in June 2007 by Nintendo, but Nintendo wasn’t very specific about the pricing scheme.